Recent reviews by Dr.Hypodermic

Play a colony for over three hours from the start, struggling to stay alive but ultimately becoming stable.
Every colonist is killed by a rampaging herd of elk out for revenge.

Bonk the monsters, funny callouts, cat vs. dog debate.

This game is fun, addictive, and adorable. There's way more to it that it seems at the start and it's super light hearted and enjoyable.
10/10, highly recommended.

So I just finished this game today after deciding to pick up the goty edition to replay. At seventeen hours I have completed the main story and have not yet played any of the dlc so I'll just be reviewing the core game itself.

Graphics/Sound 7/10
Now I'm not a big graphics guy, they're not a huge selling point for me, and I knew coming in that this is an older game. With that in mind, I really didn't mind. Yes, they're dated. No, this isn't going to look like Skyrim. But the style is unique and this isn't a HD remake so I didn't really see much to complain about.
As far as sound, the game has an almost western style soundtrack in most of the maps that helped drive home the desolation of the planet and the opressive heat most of the game seems to take place in. Nothing to write home about but it was good enough.

Gameplay 7/10
I've seen some reviews calling the game a walking simulator and, to be honest, i can't really disagree. I found myself running around on foot doing nothing to get from one place to another a whole hell of a lot, to the point that I chose to ignore a mission until the next time I played because I didn't feel like going to a map I was just at to walk from one end to the other again.
Besides that, the combat is fun and can get hecktic at times and the banter from the enemies is enjoyable. A downside is that some fights just feel unfair and the final boss fight is anti-climatic and easily cheated. Also, for a game that boasts a rediculous number of different weapons, most of them felt the same. It was hard to tell one shotgun from the next and the only really noticable variation was with the combat rifles (large magazine fully automatic or smaller capacity semiautomatic rifle style) and the handguns (semiautomatic pistol style or revlover).
Even with those problems the combat is still tight and enjoyable and it's nice to see an enemy who was electrocued to death have his face melt off down to his skull.

Story 4/10
This is where Gearbox really dropped the ball with Borderlands. There is a story, I promise you, but you have to go out of your way to read the mission logs (some of which, like the claptrap or scavenger ones, are copy and pasted) and pay attention to the NPCs when they call which can be difficult if you're in combat. The story is also pretty bare bones, leaving a lot of questions unanswered (I think the guardians are only mentioned once or twice in passing) and like I mentioned before, the ending is pretty anti-climatic and just sort of drops off suddenly.

Overview 7/10
All in all, this game has it's problems. It's a little outdated and if you don't like refrences to other media then maybe this isn't for you. Gearbox didn't really hit their stride with the series until the second game but this one was a good start. It's funny, unique, and enjoyable as long as you keep in mind that it's six years old.